A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DLouis Aimé Augustin (Edmée Auguste) Le Prince : 1842 - 1890?
Though he lacked the financial backing and research facilities of Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers, the acknowledged pioneers of cinema, and did not live to exploit his invention commercially, Louis Le Prince came close to achieving a successful process of cinematography. Le Prince was born in Metz on 28 August 1842. His father, a French Army officer, was a friend of the photographic inventor, Jacques Louis Mandé Daguerre, and the young Louis often visited his studio. Le Prince studied chemistry and physics at the University of Leipzig then worked as a photographer and painter. In 1866 he met and became friends with John Whitley, a young British engineer. At his invitation, Le Prince came to Britain, to the Yorkshire city of Leeds, where he joined the family engineering firm, Whitley Partners, first as a designer and then as manager of the valve department. In 1869, Le Prince married Elizabeth Whitley and together they set up a School of Applied Art in Park Square, Leeds. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) Le Prince returned to France to enlist in the French Army. In the siege of Paris, he was an officer of Volunteers. Le Prince moved to New York in 1881 with his family to work on the development of the Lincrusta wallpaper process, in which John Whitley had an interest. When the patent rights were sold to an American company, Le Prince found work managing a chain of panorama theatres in New York, Washington and Chicago. During this period, many of the technologies associated with the invention of cinema were being developed. Eadweard Muybridge toured the United States and Europe showing examples of his sequential photography; Etienne Jules Marey perfected the revolving-gun camera which took up to 12 pictures a second. In 1885, George Eastman's paper roll film became available and this was followed by the commercial development of celluloid film in late 1889. According to Le Prince's wife, 'his conception of moving photographs and earliest experiments to find the best material for films dated back to Park Square, Leeds before his journey to New York with my brother.' In New York, Le Prince was allowed to use workshop facilities at the New York Institute for the Deaf, where his wife taught art. He produced his 16-lens camera in 1886. This complex device was the subject of Le Prince's American patent, applied for on 2 November 1886. A British patent, applied for on 10 January 1888, the same day the American patent was granted, contained an extra clause relating to a single-lens camera and projector, and was issued on 16 November 1888. Le Prince returned to Leeds in May 1887, leaving his wife in New York. At a workshop in Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, he developed a single-lens camera which he used in 1888 to make moving picture sequences at the Whitley family home in Roundhay and of Leeds Bridge. These only exist today as photographic copies, made in the 1930s, of parts of the paper film strips. In 1890, Le Prince wrote to his wife that he was planning to return to New York and she hired premises in preparation for showing his moving pictures. But first, Le Prince went to France to visit his brother, an architect in Dijon, in order to collect his share of an inheritance. He was reported to have been seen boarding a train at Dijon on 16 September 1890 to return to Paris and meet friends from Leeds. However, Le Prince did not arrive and was never seen again, despite exhaustive enquiries by his family and the British and French police. Various theories abound as to the cause of his disappearance though it has recently come to light that Le Prince had financial problems. According to a statement made by Frederic Mason, who constructed the wooden body of Le Prince's single-lens camera, 'After waiting about a month, Mr Longley [the mechanic who worked for Le Prince] and myself entered the workshop and found everything quite normal, the machines intact, and tools, drawings, photographs, as well as a quantity of discarded material, lying about. Mr Richard Wilson, a friend of the family and manager of Lloyds Bank, Leeds, took charge of all the effects and proceeded to dispose of such parts as could readily be sold...Mr Wilson retained the camera, parts of the projector, including a lens...and a machine with multiple lenses that Mr Le Prince made in Paris in 1887 for the purpose of "proving his patent". They eventually went to Mrs Le Prince in New York City and were kept there until October 1930...They are now housed in the Science Museum...' These two cameras are currently at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford.
Christopher Rawlence, The Missing Reel (Collins, UK, 1990) Simon Popple, Le Prince's Early Film Cameras (in Photographica World, September 1993) Rod Varley, Le Prince and the Lumières (in Making of the Modern World, Science Museum, UK, 1992) E Kilburn Scott, Career of L A A Le Prince (in Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, USA, July 1931) E Kilburn Scott, The Pioneer Work of Le Prince in Kinematography (in The Photographic Journal, UK, August 1923)
In early October 1888, French born Louis Le Prince photographed what is to claimed* to be the first motion picture film. The subject was the garden of his Father in Law, Mr Joseph Whitley at Roundhay, Leeds. The date is fixed as his mother/mother in law appears in the film. She was to die later that same month. Still later in October 1888 he photographed traffic crossing Leeds Bridge. Initially Le Prince used paper roll film but switched to the new Eastman celluloid film in 1899. Le Prince disappeared without a trace after boarding a train in Dijon, France in September 1890.
Louis Le Prince's most famous work was done overlooking Leeds Bridge, West Yorkshire. The bridge carries the A61 into the city centre. Le Prince filmed from the white British Waterways building on the town side of the bridge and specifically, from the 2nd window from the top, closest to the bridge, on the side facing the water. Le Prince's workshop in Woodhouse Lane where he first projected his moving pictures is now the site of the BBC in Leeds.
this most early example of cinema has now been painstakingly restored by Charl Lucassen "The first moving picture films were taken in 1888 by Louis Le Prince, a Frenchman living in Britain. In our collection (NMPFT) we have two of the cameras designed and used by Le Prince, probably the world's earliest surviving movie cameras."
File Note: Also see The Career of L. A. A. Le Prince by E. Kilburn Scott
From David L. Quinlan Subject: Le Prince, Cinema Pioneer
"A book was written on the career of Le Prince in the 1980's. The name of the book was "The Missing Reel". It's rather a pot boiler and the scientific aspect is minimised." Back to the Top | Scientists and Engineers G - M | Quit | eMail: Dr Russell Naughton |